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Fabulous costume - though the magic comes from the mind of the child wearing it.

My children have both been enthralled by the Harry Potter franchise since watching the first film on the television. This has only increased since playing lego Harry Potter on the Wii, and me reading some of the story to them at bedtime. So, when I saw there was a range of Harry Potter dressing up clothes, and having a need to buy more dressing up things after my children have both grown a lot over summer, I decided to get a Harry Potter Deluxe dressing up outfit.

One thing that I noticed when browsing was that there is a whole range of costumes, some come with more accessories than others. You can also buy the accessories on their own as kits. However, this particular costume from Rubies on amazon grabbed my attention as it seemed to come with a lot for the price of £20. While this seems a fair amount of money, a lot of kids costumes are around this price, and I felt the play value and actual cash value to this set looked good.

I opted to buy the costume in size 7-8 for my 6 year old as he is really quite tall. The recommended height to wear this costume is 122-128cm, and my son is in this height range and the robe comes to below his knees and doesn't make him look uncomfortable or restrict his play. My 4 year old does like to wear this too, and on his slightly smaller frame, this comes down to his ankles, and while it looks brilliant at this length, it does seem to be a bit of a trip hazard.

The main part of the costume has to be the long black robe that is like Harry's school robes he wears in the film. The robe is long sleeved, and the main body of the robe and the hood are lined with a red fabric, so it is quite well made and thick for the child to wear, and as it is thick it seems to hang really nicely so you can't really see the clothes the child is wearing underneath. The robe only has a velcro fastening at the top under the chin, so it is easy for a child to dress themselves in this costume. The finishing touch to this robe is the Gryffindor logo on the chest, which is like the printed transfers that you get on children's T shirts. This seems quite hard wearing thus far. It is recommended that you only sponge clean this costume like you see on many dressing up outfits. Overall, I feel this is a high quality item that has been well made, and it looks brilliant on the child wearing it.

The bit that then makes the costume stand out is the Harry Potter glasses. These are a little cheap looking as they are just the wire frame, though I can see if you had lens in the glasses, they would more than likely fall out constantly anyway. My children do not seem to mind that there is no glass in them, and they are not saying they are uncomfortable to wear and they don't leave marks on their ears from wearing them. My eldest wears glasses anyway for reading, but I thought my youngest might find the sensation of wearing these a little odd, but he loves them. A big smile appears on his face whenever he gets the costume on.

All good wizards need a wand, and this outfit comes with a foot long plastic wand. This is thick enough to not bend when it is banged against things and also light enough that it does not seem to hurt if your child is like mine and energetically waves the wand around to cast spells with no regard for where Mummy's head is. I imagine if I were poked in the eye it would still hurt, but a tap on the arm is not a problem.

The final touch, which seems to be the most unusual accessory in these dress up kits is a Gryffindor stripey scarf. This is really long, I would say around a metre in length. I can almost hold it between my hands with my arms fully outstretched. It is really long on the kids, but it adds that extra dash of colour when I wrap it round them.

I find that this costume has really inspired my children with their role play. They really enjoy wearing this and pretending to cast spells that they have seen on the film and the computer game. The quality is excellent compared to cheaper costumes so I feel it is well worth the price, and the only negative is I am going to have to buy my youngest one too so they both can play together without one feeling left out. I love any toy that encourages my children to be imaginative, and this one fits into that category. I think my youngest actually believes he can perform magic wearing this costume, and I felt sorry for his bedtime bunny when he tried to turn it into a frog.

Fabulous costume - though the magic comes from the mind of the child wearing it.